Guild Wars 2

For the expac…

It just feels… bleh.

Might help people if you explained why you feel that way. It’s sort of hard to respond to the little information you’ve put here.

And if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.
Once you have done the very first part of it you can get access to all the new maps.

I must confess I find it hard to take man-eating vegetables seriously…

my motivation was doing it 5 times because you get ley armor piece.

DoctorDing.5890:

And if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.
Once you have done the very first part of it you can get access to all the new maps.

I must confess I find it hard to take man-eating vegetables seriously…

Access yes, map completion is not possible though, you have to complete the story up to the Egg Bearer to unlock part of the map under Tarir.

Oxidia.8103:

my motivation was doing it 5 times because you get ley armor piece.

If nothing else, the rewards are definitely worthwhile.

Oxidia.8103:

my motivation was doing it 5 times because you get ley armor piece.

Chase that digital carrot on a stick – stay thirsty my friend.

You realize that Anet wouldn’t make garbage like having to play the story over and over and over and over and over to get an armor set if players wouldn’t do it.

Thank you for participating in Dr. Skinner’s behavior experiment sir.

The story is horrible. I can’t bear to go through it again. I’ve only sent one through.

Killance.4158:

For the expac…

It just feels… bleh.

The story does what it set out to do: confront and takedown Mordremoth. It’s that the plot has a few weak spots; unfortunately the weakest plot point is just before you the climax which really deflates any tension. The roadblocking with the mastery system and a deadend detour stop at one of the location really hurts the pacing. If you’ve already got the necessary masteries unlocked, it’s worth a single playthrough.

Video games have it tough when trying to spin a story in an interesting and entertaining manner. This isn’t a story driven game either – it’s a persistent game first and foremost. In an MMO, this one included, so often the mechanics and scope (there are a lot of other stuff that needs created and story can’t be front and center all the time) don’t quite mesh with the story deliver. The plot is at its strongest right out of the gate, but by time your heading into map 2 and definitely by map 3 things are feeling like sections were rushed or omitted entirely. Canach is the highlight of the story as he’s the only character that has an arc. The complete lack of denouement or epilogue just leaves the player with that ‘well that’s over I guess’ feeling and it probably would have felt better to get some closure and dialogue with the other characters in the cast (voice over not needed even). A complete of significant events occurred and it was a missed opportunity to use those to further expose of develop characters – but the ending, storywise especially, just felt incredibly rushed.

The writing staff certainly has talent but I suspect that the narrative get short end of the stick fairly often leaving the plot feeling like its being made-up on the fly quite often. HoT, more than most other areas of the game, makes use of the world (the maps, the npcs, the mini stories and types of event chains, the sound design, music score) to support the plot. It really does feel like a world at war, especially in verdant brink. By time we’ve reached dragon stand though once again the material is starting to run out of jam and this is likely why dragon stand has so little ‘stuff’ on the map at all and was instead implemented as a instance that closes (nothing populated on the map to explore so don’t let players see how empty the map is; make it a rush for a few minutes after the map meta is completed to artificially make it seem exciting and a rush to find stuff due to the time limit).

Anyway, its worth playing through once. The plot is serviceable, and if nothing else you’ve paid at least $50 US for it.

I think that they had more ambitious plans for the story, but deadlines, setbacks, and compromise resulted in the story we got.

if i want story, i read a book, or watch a movie
mmos are the worst way to present a story IMO

DaShi.1368:

The story is horrible. I can’t bear to go through it again. I’ve only sent one through.

total hardcore, man
i couldnt stand more than an hour or so
never again

It really has very little value these days, for some unknown (to me) all loot was removed O.o
Its really very linear right through, it starts strong but progresses to trahearn and god awful Orr etc which is so draggy and a grind to play..

Honestly i’m not sure why it was never revamped, the loot removal was its death knell..

Dante.1508:

It really has very little value these days, for some unknown (to me) all loot was removed O.o
Its really very linear right through, it starts strong but progresses to trahearn and god awful Orr etc which is so draggy and a grind to play..

Honestly i’m not sure why it was never revamped, the loot removal was its death knell..

He’s talking about the expansion pac story not the personal story.

Jahroots.6791:

Oxidia.8103:

my motivation was doing it 5 times because you get ley armor piece.

If nothing else, the rewards are definitely worthwhile.

The rewards are not so great anymore. i just leveld a character, and the rewards where meh.

I found the rewards to be lackluster.
I took my storyline to auric basin on two level 80s and on my third 80 I decided it was time to continue my story. At this point I had a better feel for the maps and mechanics of mobs.
I was excited granted the prior storyline in vb was a disappointment in itself. I had hope things would get better…. And boy was I wrong. all in all I would give the hot story two thumbs down.
It was confusing.
I did not feel engaged in the storyline. Random npcs chattering for 5-10 minutes sometimes had me shutting the game down mid story to find something better to do or take a nap. Boring utterly boring.
Things felt incomplete, rushed, it really felt like filler. Not what I expected. I imagined great graphics, glorious cut scenes. Tough fights with multiple mechanics to complete tasks.
And don’t get me wrong there was a bit of that but with little to no direction in the story itself you were sometimes left scratching your head. I found myself jumping off random cliffs and crossing my fingers that I was headed the right way.

I wont spoil any of the story itself for those that have not experienced it but when I finally reached the end I sat staring at my screen for a good 5 minutes shaking me head and thinking “that’s it”?

I had hope that the story would give me a bit of a push to continue, to re energize me. In the end it left me… shaking my head.

The only saving grace for the expac in my eyes are the achievs. When I first started them I found the whole process tedious but theres not much else to do and not much else to keep you grinding those masteries

I find it kind of sad that the actual gameplay of the HoT story instances is far less interesting than what was offered in the LS2 story instances. Only the final one comes anywhere close to LS2.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I find it kind of sad that the actual gameplay of the HoT story instances is far less interesting than what was offered in the LS2 story instances. Only the final one comes anywhere close to LS2.

I actually liked the HoT story instances better than the large bulk of Living Story Season 2 instances. They felt different to me. I’m not really sure how to explain it.

It’s like the LS Season 2 felt more follow the numbers. They didn’t feel as cohesive to me, possibly just because there were long breaks between them.

I didn’t particularly like the layout of Glint’s Lair, for example. Boss fight, after boss fight after boss fight. That’s not that interesting to me.

I’d probably that I approach the game from a completely different direction than you.

I found Glint’s Lair nice to look at, but terrible to play through. Too many fights where you’re not fighting but manipulating the surroundings.

I was thinking of things like the 2 completely different fights against the Shadow of the Dragon, the teragriff boss, the stealth mission.

The HoT instances have nothing interesting going for them by way of mechanics, apart from the final one. And on top of that they have the temerity to actually call the parts where we’re just moving from one point of the map to the next part of the map “story chapters”. Ridiculous.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I found Glint’s Lair nice to look at, but terrible to play through. Too many fights where you’re not fighting but manipulating the surroundings.

I was thinking of things like the 2 completely different fights against the Shadow of the Dragon, the teragriff boss, the stealth mission.

The HoT instances have nothing interesting going for them by way of mechanics, apart from the final one. And on top of that they have the temerity to actually call the parts where we’re just moving from one point of the map to the next part of the map “story chapters”. Ridiculous.

Yeah I don’t think I’m much of a mechanics guy. I don’t generally enjoy boss fights. That’s probably one of the main reasons why a lot of the stuff that appeals to other people doesn’t appeal to me. I’d rather feel like I’m immersed in a war zone than fight a giant boss.

To me, I feel like most of the new stories are “bigger” in scope, like the original Guild Wars 1 missions and they feel a lot more like the GW 1 missions. That’s huge for me.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

It really has very little value these days, for some unknown (to me) all loot was removed O.o
Its really very linear right through, it starts strong but progresses to trahearn and god awful Orr etc which is so draggy and a grind to play..

Honestly i’m not sure why it was never revamped, the loot removal was its death knell..

He’s talking about the expansion pac story not the personal story.

The original story the game came with was fun for me.

The npcs talk too much, the cutscenes are too slow, and you can totally cheese it by skipping all the mobs and getting the npcs to warp to the next checkpoint. Only worth doing for the XP, items, collections, and mastery points.

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

It really has very little value these days, for some unknown (to me) all loot was removed O.o
Its really very linear right through, it starts strong but progresses to trahearn and god awful Orr etc which is so draggy and a grind to play..

Honestly i’m not sure why it was never revamped, the loot removal was its death knell..

He’s talking about the expansion pac story not the personal story.

I see my apologies i thought i was in the GW2 general forum.

DaShi.1368:

The story is horrible. I can’t bear to go through it again. I’ve only sent one through.

Me, too. I’ve done the story partially on more than one character, but I’ve only finished it all the way through on my main. I didn’t like it. It felt rushed and didn’t have the proper emotion for the major things that happened. It had a contrived solution to a major problem that didn’t make logical sense and had no decent lead-up. And the final battle and victory didn’t feel epic at all, the way Zhaitan’s victory did.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

It really has very little value these days, for some unknown (to me) all loot was removed O.o
Its really very linear right through, it starts strong but progresses to trahearn and god awful Orr etc which is so draggy and a grind to play..

Honestly i’m not sure why it was never revamped, the loot removal was its death knell..

He’s talking about the expansion pac story not the personal story.

I see my apologies i thought i was in the GW2 general forum.

Well I interpreted the “For the expac…” to mean for the expac. I suppose he could have meant do the original story so that he could get to the expac story but that’s far from clear here.

Celtic Lady.3729:

DaShi.1368:

The story is horrible. I can’t bear to go through it again. I’ve only sent one through.

Me, too. I’ve done the story partially on more than one character, but I’ve only finished it all the way through on my main. I didn’t like it. It felt rushed and didn’t have the proper emotion for the major things that happened. It had a contrived solution to a major problem that didn’t make logical sense and had no decent lead-up. And the final battle and victory didn’t feel epic at all, the way Zhaitan’s victory did.

And yet, one of the biggest complaints about the Zhaitan fight was how anticlimatic it was. I’ve seen far more complaints about Zhaitan being anticlimatic than about Mordremonth being anitcilimatic.

That’s not to say the Mordremoth fight isn’t buggy, because it is, but hitting 2 to kill Zhaitan in a minute or so is one of the biggest complaints about the original story.

Vayne.8563:

Celtic Lady.3729:

DaShi.1368:

The story is horrible. I can’t bear to go through it again. I’ve only sent one through.

Me, too. I’ve done the story partially on more than one character, but I’ve only finished it all the way through on my main. I didn’t like it. It felt rushed and didn’t have the proper emotion for the major things that happened. It had a contrived solution to a major problem that didn’t make logical sense and had no decent lead-up. And the final battle and victory didn’t feel epic at all, the way Zhaitan’s victory did.

And yet, one of the biggest complaints about the Zhaitan fight was how anticlimatic it was. I’ve seen far more complaints about Zhaitan being anticlimatic than about Mordremonth being anitcilimatic.

That’s not to say the Mordremoth fight isn’t buggy, because it is, but hitting 2 to kill Zhaitan in a minute or so is one of the biggest complaints about the original story.

I’m not referring to the small part of the final instance where we gun Zhaitan to death. I’m talking about the level of follow-up after his death and the celebration at the end. The fact that I died repeatedly during the Mordemoth fight and I didn’t during the Zhaitan fight does nothing to increase my feeling that the Mordemoth fight was more epic. It wasn’t more epic for me. It was just frustrating, long, and overall disappointing in its scope.